We’re really excited to publish research conducted by Janelle Asselin on gender and comics audiences on Ye Olde Ladydrawers Blogge. Email her at janelle.m.asselin@gmail.com.

Howdy folks! You ready for statistic overload? I’m currently a grad student at Pace University studying publishing and also an associate editor in comics. Because of my passion for the field and my concern about the place of women in it, I opted to write my thesis on the topic of “How can the comic book industry increase sales among women?”

To support my thesis, I put together a lengthy but casual survey on women and comics, especially focusing on how the industry perceives itself currently, and distributed it through my Twitter and Facebook feeds and the feeds of any willing cohorts. Because I think it’s important for people to see outside of the context of my thesis, here are the stats from the multiple choice and yes/no questions on the survey (AKA the easy ones to do statistics for). I avoided commentary for the most part to allow the stats to speak for themselves.

1,763 responses

Participant Information

What is your gender?

Female

678

38%

Male

1043

59%

Non-binary

29

2%

What is your age?

Under 18

82

5%

18-25

588

33%

26-34

686

39%

35-50

369

21%

50+

25

1%

How long have you been reading comics?

Less than a year

63

4%

1-2 years

106

6%

3-5 years

262

15%

5-10 years

274

16%

10+ years

1026

58%

I don’t read comics!

16

1%

What sorts of comics do you read?

Superhero

1495

86%

Crime

675

39%

Autobiographical

439

25%

Fantasy

1101

63%

Licensed (based on movies, TV, etc)

565

32%

Horror

659

38%

Comedy

838

48%

Western

375

22%

Manga

842

48%

Other

380

22%

People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.